to his influence and power in the city. He
was welcomed with celebrations and triumphs; the people flocked to see
him and to shout his praise. He placed his trophies of victory in the
temples, and entertained the populace with games and shows, and with
combats of gladiators or of wild beasts, which he had brought home with
him for this purpose in the train of his army. While he was thus
enjoying his triumph, his political enemies would be thrown into the
back ground and into the shade; unless, indeed, some one of them might
himself be earning the same honors in some other field, to come back in
due time, and claim his share of power and celebrity in his turn. In
this case, Rome would be sometimes distracted and rent by the conflicts
and contentions of military rivals, who had acquired powers too vast for
all the civil influences of the Republic to regulate or control.

[Illustration: ROMAN PLEBEIANS.]

[Sidenote: Military rivals.]
[Sidenote: Marius and Sylla.]
[Sidenote: The patricians and plebeians.]
[Sidenote: Civil contests.]
[Sidenote: Quarrel about the command of the army.]
[Sidenote: Sylla's violence.]

There had been two such rivals just before the time of Caesar, who had
filled the world with their quarrels. They were Marius and Sylla. Their
very names have been, in all ages of the world, since their day, the
symbols of rivalry and hate. They were the representatives respectively
of the two great parties into which the Roman state, like every other
community in which the population at large have any voice in governing,
always has been, and probably always will be divided, the upper and the
lower; or, as they were called in those days, the patrician and the
plebeian. Sylla was the patrician; the higher and more aristocratic
portions of the community were on his side. Marius was the favorite of
the plebeian masses. In the contests, however, which they waged with
each other, they did not trust to the mere influence of votes. They
relied much more upon the soldiers they could gather under their
respective standards and upon their power of intimidating, by means of
them, the Roman assemblies. There was a war to be waged with
Mithridates, a very powerful Asiatic monarch, which promised great
opportunities for acquiring fame and plunder. Sylla was appointed to the
command. While he was absent, however, upon some campaign in Italy,
Marius contrived to have the decision reversed, and the command
transferred to him T